


Coming Up For Air

by xxTwasADreamxx



Series: Hanging Off the Hinges [3]
Category: Whiplash (2014)
Genre: M/M, Possessive Fletcher, Slurs, a little fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-31
Updated: 2015-05-31
Packaged: 2018-04-02 05:48:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4048537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxTwasADreamxx/pseuds/xxTwasADreamxx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fletcher is a surprisingly possessive bastard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coming Up For Air

**Author's Note:**

> Hi again! Third and probably final fic in this short series, although of course I'm going to keep writing Whiplash fics! Title once again taken from WALK THE MOON's Anna Sun. Hope you enjoy! 
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing

_Coming Up For Air_

         Fletcher is a surprisingly possessive bastard. Andrew doesn’t expect this, really, even though the signs had all been there-the way Fletchers fingers dig into his hips when they fucked, or the way he gets pissed when another conductor comes and tries to woo Andrew away. But jealous Fletcher is something new, and, to be honest, Andrew kind of likes it.

         It started when they were out at a bar where someone Fletcher knew was playing. Andrew hadn’t particularly wanted to come but at the same time anyone who’d known Fletcher _before_ (before Andrew, as if there was a time, their lives seemed to both start and end the moment Fletcher had walked into Andrew practicing his double time swing that one late night) was interesting to him. He hadn’t expected to run into someone _he_ knew there; it wasn’t like he had any friends. Really the only people he saw these days were interviewers and his dad and Fletcher.

         Yet suddenly through the crowd and the smoke there was Nicole, hair shiny and long and smile sweetly cracking her face as she stopped at their table.

         “Hey,” she greeted almost shyly, and Andrew blinked and smiled awkwardly back because he hadn’t talked to her in a long time, not since before Lincoln Center.

         “Hey. I didn’t, um, what are you doing here?” he asked her awkwardly, hand reaching back to tug at the curls lying at the base of his neck. He could feel Fletcher’s eyes burning holes through his head.

         “My friend’s really into this guy,” she nodded at the man who was playing, Fletcher’s friends opener, and Andrew just nodded back and muttered a ‘cool’.

         “Well, if you’re free later we should get a drink, catch up,” she tilted her head and the slight crook in her mouth led him to believe that maybe she’d broken up with the boyfriend who hadn’t liked jazz.

         “Yeah, that’d be great,” Andrew nodded enthusiastically, feeling like a bobble head.

         “I’ll find you later,” she smiled again before disappearing through the smoke like a ghost, and when Andrew looked forward he found Fletcher glaring at him like he was trying to cut Andrew in half with just his gaze.

         “Old girlfriend?” Fletcher asked, voice tight, and Andrew instinctively flinched back because that was the voice Fletcher used when he was about to throw something.

         “Yeah,” Andrew muttered beneath the starting strums of a bass, and they sat in mutual silence for a long time as the opener ended and Fletcher’s friend played some improv jazz that was really good except the drummer wasn’t as awesome as him.

         Andrew’s gaze drifted as the set ended, to the way the pianists fingers slowed and the drummers sticks fell more softly. The smoke had cleared a little as the night went on, and Andrew could see Nicole and her friend gathering their bags at the bar. Fletcher muttered something about going to see his friend and Andrew nodded distractedly, made his way over to Nicole as soon as Fletcher left.

         “Hey, there you are! It was getting late,” Nicole laughed, and her friend looked knowingly between them.

         “Yeah, I just wanted to say goodbye before you left,” Andrew smiled but it was dimmer now, his excitement fading just as the night had. Outside lights still raged through the city, and there would be noisy drunks and honking cabs and laughing people well after midnight, but in here life was winding down.

         “Why don’t we go for a coffee sometime?” Nicole suggested as her friend disappeared through the crowd towards the door, leaving them alone in a room full of unknown people.

         “Look, I’m kind of...I really appreciate it, but I’m kind of seeing someone,” Andrew stuttered out, cheeks reddening. He wondered if she would guess that it was the man sitting across from him before, who was more than twice his age, who was an asshole and almost led to Andrew’s death more than once. Sometimes he wondered if everyone could guess, see the way his eyes lit up whenever Fletcher put his hand on Andrew’s shoulder or gave him that eye crinkling, subtle smile or even cursed at him for being such a dipshit. He found he didn’t really care, these days.

         “Oh. Okay, I guess I’ll see you around then,” Nicole half deflated, dragged her mouth up anyway as she patted his arm and left.

         Andrew cleared his throat and shook his head to clear it of the moment before shuffling back over to Fletcher and his friend.

         Fletcher didn’t touch his shoulder or give him that semi-smile all through the time he introduced Andrew to his friend, and even when they were walking slow footed back to Fletcher’s apartment through the balmy night he was scarily silent. Andrew berated himself for whatever dumbass mistake he’d made the whole time, didn’t understand until they’d gotten into Fletcher’s penthouse and Fletcher shoved him into the bedroom what the matter was.

         “Made a date with your girlfriend?” Fletcher raised his eyebrows in that deprecating way he did, and it hit Andrew like a freight train.

         “You’re jealous?” Andrew stared, disbelieving that someone like Fletcher, who was a hard ass and barely seemed to have any emotions except anger and disappointment, could feel something Andrew felt every time Andrew looked at a picture of him with some woman that may have been his ex-wife set on a side table, or even wondered if he fucked the friend that’d played at the bar tonight when Fletcher smiled at him wider than he ever did at Andrew.

         “Shut the fuck up, cocksucker,” Fletcher muttered and pushed him again towards the bed.

         Andrew fell down with an ‘oomph’, air rushing from his chest in double time as Fletcher pulled his jeans off and grabbed a bottle of lube from the bedside table. They’d taken to fucking here a lot, lately, and Andrew sometimes joked that it was because Fletcher was old and needed a soft bed for his back, except then Fletcher would grumble and curse at him and slap him around and fuck him over the kitchen table just to prove how much his back could take.

         Fletcher pushed into him without preamble, and Andrew arched, nails dragging down Fletcher’s back hard enough to leave bloody trails. His nose hit Fletchers neck and he bit down hard where Fletchers head met his shoulders, and Fletcher let out something akin to a growl and thrust harder.

         This was what Andrew imagined when he was at his worst, examining the full bottle of pain killers and sleeping meds that littered his small bathroom and wondering who would miss him if he died. That stark image of Fletcher, muscled arms bracketing his head as he thrust above Andrew, breath hot on his cheek. Fletcher’s palm connecting with his cheek and shoulders to leave hot marks across his skin, branded into him, connecting them in a way more real and more strongly than anything Andrew had ever had with someone else. He would imagine this, Fletcher muttering his name like a prayer in his ear. The way Fletcher tasted beneath Andrew’s tongue, salty and warm, the way he let out a strangled breath when Andrew’s teeth scraped across his jaw. He would imagine Fletcher, and then he would let the feeling pass and put the pills down and go back to practicing drums.

            Later Andrew would wake to find himself curled into Fletchers side, moon shining through the slats in the window shades. He would time his breath so that it matched Fletcher’s, soft and even, and lull himself back to sleep. In the morning there would be orange juice and grumbled insults and Andrew would smile like he never did with Nicole, and they would fuck and curse and fight and live.


End file.
